Monday, November 12, 2012

I received a video in my email this past week that really
made me think. It showed an older gentleman sitting on a bench with an adult,
younger male reading a newspaper next to him. A bird lands on a branch of a
nearby tree and the old man says, "What is that?" "It is a
sparrow," the younger man answers.

A few seconds later, another bird lands on a nearby bush and
the old man inquires, "What is that?" The younger man looks up from
his reading and says, "It is a sparrow." Still another bird lands on
another tree branch and the old man again asks, "What is that?" The
younger man looks up, visibly annoyed, and answers, "It is a sparrow, a
sparrow, the same as the other birds you asked me abouta s-p-a-r-r-o-w!, Why are you doing this to
me?"

The older man stands up and heads into the house they are
sitting in front of. He comes back out with a book (it turns out to be a diary
or journal that the old man has kept), turns to a page, and asks the younger
man (by now I have figured out it is his son) to read the passage he points to.

In summary, here's what the son read out loud: "Today,
I was sitting in the park with my young son and he asked me the name of a bird
that had landed nearby. I answered him that it was a sparrow. Twenty-one times
he asked me, 'What is that?' and, twenty-one times I answered that it was a
sparrow. Twenty-one times I hugged him because of the affection I felt for this
young son of mine…"

What does that have to do with bowling? On the surface there
seems to be no connection, however, as a coach, I sometimes have to answer the
same question over and over again. Because it is a student of mine asking the
question, I tend to be very tolerant. Sometimes, before we can move forward
with a lesson, a point must be clearly understood or the coming lessons might
not make sense.

Patience - "It is a sparrow." "It is the
second arrow." "It is a smooth follow-through." "It is a
pendulum swing." "It is a reactive resin bowling ball." "It
is your pre-shot routine." "It is your positive mental attitude."
"It is your ability to adjust to different lane conditions." "It
is your practice session routine." "It is your 'why'?" "It
is your love of the sport." "It is a sparrow." - Patience. It
is, indeed, a virtue.